Unmanned Systems Acquisitions Tight in 2015 Defense Budget

Photo courtesy Northrop Grumman.

By John Doyle



Unmanned systems and the platforms that use them are under constraint like everything else in the fiscal year 2015 defense budget, which was capped by Congress last year at $496 billion.



Defense Department officials announced Tuesday, 4 March they were seeking $293.1 million to acquire MQ-1B Predators and MQ-1C Gray Eagles — down from more than $590 million sought for the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems unmanned aircraft sought the year before.



Lower numbers were also on the Pentagon's budget request this year for AAI Corp.'s RQ-7 Shadow, the AeroVironment RQ-11 Raven and the Boeing Insitu RQ-21 Blackjack (also known as the Integrator) systems, with $238.1 million in the budget this year compared to $252.5 million a year earlier.



There were some bright spots, however. The Air Force has decided to dump the high-flying but ancient manned U-2 spy plane and is returning to the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 UAS for high altitude intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance. The Pentagon is asking Congress for $1.08 billion, compared to $762.7 million last year for the Global Hawk, its MQ-4 Triton maritime variant and the NATO AGS variant. The Navy plans to acquire four Tritons a year between fiscal 2016 and 2019 for a total of 16. The Navy also intends to acquire eight more small tactical unmanned aircraft systems (STUAS) between 2017 and 2019 for ship and land-launched reconnaissance missions.



The Pentagon is also cutting back on the number of Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) the Navy will acquire, from 52 to 32 over the decade. The LCS, designed to operate in shallow coastal waters, comes in two variants, Freedom, made by Lockheed Martin and the Independence version manufactured by Australian shipbuilder, Austal, have had firepower, crew manning and vulnerability issues. Critics say it is too lightly armed and armored to survive battle in a contested area, like the waters off North Korea or Iran. The LCS was intended to make extensive use of unmanned systems as part of its modular mission packages like antisubmarine warfare.



The Air Force is counting an optionally manned Long Range Strike bomber among its three top acquisition/recapitalization programs and will seek additional research and development funding.